Requiem for a Scientist
by KnightNight7203
Summary: "Science is easy — science is, quite probably, what she is when she's not tied up being a person. But this problem is one she can't seem to follow through logically to the end." In which Holtzmann struggles with the nuances of friendship, and the others help her overcome the parts of her that make her doubt her worth.
1. Chapter 1

Interacting for the first time in a long time with more than one person on a daily basis, Holtzmann begins to assemble a collection of careful observations that she thinks will be useful in the future.

For example: there are people, and then there is a person, and between the two there are very distinct differences.

It's fairly common to be people; in fact, almost all human beings are, in one form or another. People have brains that engage in thinking about _something_ , limbs that flail or maybe even obey commands that have been recently thought. They eat when they've used up all their stored energy (or sometimes, careful monitoring reveals, before that point for enjoyment purposes), they cry when their minds receive signals of pain (usually physical, but sometimes emotional distress seems to inspire similar symptoms). They choose whether or not to brush their hair and if their socks should match in the morning (although, depending on things like laundry habits, this may be less of a choice and more of a sort of predetermined coincidence). They have a birth certificate and a driver's license and a profession that provides a means to continue eating and buying socks, but is usually separate from the people in the sense that they can exist without it.

A person, on the other hand, is somehow all of this and yet also something _more_. She might smile when she wakes up in the morning, hair still tousled from sleep, in anticipation of the potential excitement the day ahead might hold. She might use a special cookie cutter scavenged from a thrift store to cut her turkey and tomato sandwich into the shape of a ghost, or wear no socks because the idea of running barefoot makes her giggle after so many years in heels. A person probably has a big family who loves her and calls every week to check in, and she probably has other routines, like a specified day for grocery shopping and regularly scheduled haircuts, too. She almost certainly has a favorite movie, and wrinkles her nose at bad jokes (and also sometimes at funny but unquestionably distasteful ones) and can keep her desk organized because no spontaneous fires send her possessions into disarray every few days.

Dr. Jillian Holtzmann would very much like to be a person like this. Unfortunately, she frequently struggles even with the effort of being a people, and so the higher rank usually seems wholly out of reach.

For the most part her status doesn't bother her one way or the other. Sure, she forgets to eat if she's wrapped up in a project, because in the moment, a nuclear breakthrough seems infinitely more important despite how the shaking of her hands makes it difficult (and sometimes downright dangerous) to assemble the new parts. If she's sad, she tends to fail to cry, simply staring blankly at the grease stains on the wall (until an alarm sounds from somewhere amid the machinery and she has to run to stop a mostly-untested generator from combusting). She hasn't brushed her hair in weeks, because it somehow doesn't seem particularly important and it's easier to secure back from her face when it's tangled into something nest-like anyway.

But sometimes she notices a kind of happiness practically radiating from the others as they do the little things that are meaningless in the grand scheme of their survival and their work. She can't help but wonder if the real thing feels quite different, and consequently better, than her trademark medley of manic energy and random, yet mostly synthesized outbursts. She rather suspects it might, and she decides she wants to find out.

As a scientist, she resorts to theories and observations to isolate her potential shortcomings and develop a solution. She thinks harder about this problem than she has about most things in the past, because science is easy — science is, quite probably, what she is since she's not tied up being a person. But this problem is one she can't seem to follow through logically to the end.

Because the more she watches her peers (friends? family?), the more she comes to realize that the ways they differ from her are usually exemplified in the instances where they _don't_ think, that a lack of planning and plotting leads to a kind of spontaneity that she only shallowly imitates in her dancing and flirtatious comebacks (which were often carefully designed the night before, shamelessly orchestrated by a practiced puppeteer).

Thinking like a scientist is what has gotten her this far, kept her from crumbling when things that don't follow patterns have deviated even from their loosely-projected courses. But now, it's starting to seem like extensive contemplation might be the very thing that stands in her way of completely assimilating into the group — stopping her from, for the first time in her life, truly belonging.

Sometimes, she feels like she might have more in common with the ghosts she hunts than the people she hunts them with. It's hard to pinpoint the exact source of this feeling — she certainly has a lot less pent-up frustration than most of the apparitions they take on, and if she could spew slime like that she wouldn't be wasting her time perfecting her ability to burp on command as a party trick. But the sense of isolation — the feeling of being forgotten but not yet gone — often rings true even with her new friends surrounding her. Maybe she's been ostracized for too long to take acceptance at face value.

She tries to decipher what the others truly think about her, but she's just bad at getting into other people's heads.

Eventually the magnitude of the thinking required for this problem becomes overwhelming even for esteemed thinker Jillian Holtzmann herself, so she does something that always feels safe despite the number of safety codes that go up in smoke at its start: she lights a fire. It's a big fire, hot enough to singe her eyebrows even from where she stands half a dozen feet away. She thinks that maybe she shouldn't have put in that old sample of chemicals, but quickly brushes off her misgivings. This is a (mostly) controlled environment, and so she trusts herself.

It's a dark evening, the cloud cover overhead heavy with the threat of rain. Holtz doesn't care — she's just glad the clouds aren't glowing green. Sometimes, when she closes her eyes, she can still see the supernatural fog from the fight in Times Square. Her fire is constructed in the middle of the roof, because standing close to the edge makes her uncomfortable — she doesn't like to see how far it is to the ground.

The acrid scent of toxic waste keeps her a little away from the fire, but she slowly decreases the distance between them until the sweat running off her skin makes her goggles slowly slide down her nose. She lets them drop from her face, gently unhooking them from behind her ears, and stares at the yellow lenses. In that moment, she can't help but think how different they look from Abby's professional, sensible glasses. Abby's are the kind of glasses you would wear to a business meeting, and to lunch with your friends at a classy restaurant afterwards. Hers are the kind you would wear to protect yourself from lightning as you bring Frankenstein's monster to life in a dark basement. Or something equally disagreeable, anyway.

She's struck by the sudden urge to try to be more like Abby. It has to be easier — after all, Abby's the reason they're all together, so she's clearly good at connecting with people and not freaking them out. Even Erin talks to Abby exponentially more than she talks to Holtz, having made her office space on the first floor next to Abby's desk and only venturing upstairs to Holtz's lab if she has something important to ask her. That stings more than she'd ever admit, and she may be bad at communication, but she's well aware that her lack of vocalization means that the situation not likely to change in the near future. This plan could help.

Holtz thinks she could do it. She could separate her job and her personality, she could make an effort to partake in things other than experiments, she could bond with the others over something more than a passion for discovery and the concealed pain of not being believed. Her fist moves over the fire, almost on its own, glasses dangling helplessly from her grip. She doesn't even need them, really. Her vision usually fine.

She's humming something, but she can't remember what it's from, or maybe she doesn't want to. It's sad, though. She doesn't like it.

She looks up to blink moisture out of her eye — from the humidity — and finds herself face to face with Erin, who has suddenly materialized beside her elbow. She flinches, almost dropping her glasses without proper ceremony, but catches them with her fingertips.

Erin rests her hand lightly on Holtz's lower back, blinking down at her questioningly, but she doesn't say anything. For a second heat flashes through Holtz's veins at the thought that Erin understands her enough to offer this silent support, and not to interrogate her about her actions. She quickly suppresses it, though. Erin's probably just too used to the weirdness to even bother asking at this point.

"Hey Gilbert," Holtz says, then clears her throat when her voice comes out strange and shaky. She blames the chemical fumes. "What's up?"

"It's chilly out here," Erin says gently. "Well, not right here, because you've apparently made another fire, but … wait …" She sniffs delicately. "Is that carbon disulfide?"

"Mebbe," Holtz mumbles, standing up and shoving her glasses back on her face. In her thick-soled combat boots she'd found at Goodwill, she's almost eye-level with the physicist's nose. She takes an unconscious step back, and Erin grabs her by the elbows and leads her away from the fire, casting an anxious glance at the flames. But she doesn't say anything about the burning chemicals, either, just stares at Holtz with a contemplative look on her face. Holtz stares back. It's a little unnerving, and a part of her wonders who will give in first. Her money would be on Erin, if she had money and someone to bet against.

Sure enough, she's only just begun to mentally run through possible ways to continue the conversation when Erin breaks the silence. "Anyway," she says, giving in to her compulsion to fill the awkward lull with rambling, "I was just coming to see if you wanted to come with us to get sandwiches or something. If you're not working on anything important. Or going somewhere else. Or meeting someone."

Erin clearly has delusions of grandeur regarding the state of Holtz's social life.

"Eat with you. Like, in public?" Holtz attempts to clarify, because they haven't been out since she tried (loudly) to convince the bartender to let her disassemble the jukebox and reprogram it to play Meat Loaf, and she wants to give them a chance to change their minds about their invitation. She may put on an oblivious face most of the time, but she knows she can be hard to handle. But Erin just laughs.

"Yes, Holtzmann. If you can bear to be away from your lab for a few hours." Holtz glances up at her nervously — does it really seem like she cares more about her work than her friends? — but Erin is smiling gently in the way she usually does when she's joking, and so Holtz lets out a chuckle.

"I think that's doable." Holtz grabs a bag of soil they'd collected earlier that week (they'd shoveled it from an old stockbroker's grave as a control for a test), dumping it over the fire to put it out. The smell of ash and, strangely enough, oranges, washes over them for a moment, and then the wind whisks it away.

"Patty's bringing the car around," Erin tells her, "because, you know, we weren't sure if you would come. But we were gonna leave now, so …"

"I'll just grab a jacket?" Erin was right — it really is chilly out without the warmth of the fire to counteract the wind. She starts down the stairs, leaving Erin staring over the smoldering remains of the fire, chewing her lip. She's probably thinking about how to make it less dangerous before they leave the building. It's one of the things she's grown to love about Erin — her constant awareness of pesky things like safety and consequences.

"Grab your notes on the new inhibitor, too," Erin calls after her when she's already halfway down the stairs. "Abby wants to compare theories about why it isn't holding power. I know you've been working on it when you forget to go home at night — maybe we can help you figure it out." Her voice is warm, the kind of sound a smiling person makes, and Holtz can feel the affection in it.

And then she freezes with her foot halfway to the next step and blinks, because in her sudden identity crisis she'd forgotten all of the reasons they turned to science in the first place. The way it brought them together. The way it allowed them to discover things. The way it helps them save people.

She smiles, continuing her descent with renewed enthusiasm and bringing her fingertips up to brush against the frames of her glasses to assure herself they're still there. For today, the scientist can stay. She just needs to adjust her hypothesis.

Or maybe, she needs to stop overthinking how her thinking impacts the things she thinks about. That part of her, the scientist that questions the good things — that's the one that needs to go.

* * *

 **The rest of this is going to be moments where the other three do something that goes against Holtzy's hypotheses, hopefully helping her gently lay to rest the parts of her that overthink things and agonize over thought of having friends so she can get the love she deserves. If you want to see how a certain scenario plays out shoot me a comment!**

 **Much love,**  
 **KnightNight7203**


	2. Chapter 2

The team pulls up to the front of a public school a little outside the city, armed and ready to take on what they hope is a harmless poltergeist. Holtzmann holds her newest brainchild, which will in theory emit a field of energy that functions as a kind of shield against projectiles, a little tighter as they step through the doors. Public schools give her the creeps.

She has to admit, it's not as bad as she remembers. Surrounded by actual friends, armed with beautiful machines she was good enough to create herself, she knows her worth this time. The way the lights flicker, casting the tile walls in an gloriously eerie glow and washing out the school spirit colors definitely helps as well. But there's still an aura of normalcy that leaves a bad taste in her mouth, a kind of dichotomy between the shiny banners praising sports accomplishments by the gym and the scuffed label peeling off the door to the chemistry lab that speaks of popularity and the misfortunes that befall you when you're just _not_.

"What's the matter, Holtzy?" Abby asks her, her tone light but an understanding expression on her face. "Flashbacks?"

"Join the club," Erin mutters darkly. It might be the fluorescents, but she looks a little pale.

"Actually, I, uh, was just reveling in the smell of unwashed gym clothes and cheap cologne," Holtz says, her grin only slightly forced. "These places are unmatched in terms of bad personal hygiene choices."

"Says the girl who's only shower last week was to wash off corrosive chemicals," Patty quips, holding her nose as Holtz pretends to waft her scent towards her friends. She doesn't actually smell like anything other than vanilla shampoo and maybe a little engine grease — she bathes every night she actually makes it to a bed, can't stand the feeling of oil on her sheets — but she likes making the others laugh. Which they do. Boisterously.

That's probably the thing that gives their location away to the ghost, they realize in retrospect.

"Harmless," they soon find, is a generous term for whatever this thing is. It shatters the lights overhead to announce its presence, and proceeds to launch desks from where they're stacked at the end of the hall toward the four of them, knocking Patty over and sending the others scattering into the doorways of classrooms. Holtz know it could be worse — it could be juggling knives, after all, or spitting fire — but it's also not the ideal ingredient for the easy day they'd all been praying for.

She watches Abby and Erin scoot into a space between two locker banks, fiddling with their proton packs and adjusting the settings on a trap. They should have more than enough juice to catch this thing, but they're gonna need time to get everything ready. Holtz takes a deep breath and pushes a button her new shield, hopefully starting it up. Distraction time.

"Patty," she yells at the top of her lungs, grabbing her hand and dragging her off the scuffed tiled floor, "in here!" They duck into a classroom, Holtz banging her proton pack off the door frame and chalkboard on the way in to draw as much attention to their movements as possible.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your definition) the ghost follows them. Chaos follows the ghost. Holtz begins to regret her plan.

A few pairs of safety scissors come flying at them, and Holtz throws a hand in front of her face before she realizes that they stopped in midair. Of course, that's when her invention starts smoking and whining shrilly, and when a handful of chalk levitates in their direction next, there is nothing to block it and it bounces off their skin. She and Patty make eye contact and then roll in separate directions. The ghost identifies Patty as the bigger threat and swirls after her in a flurry of green fog and paper shreds.

"Holtzmann!" Patty shouts from behind a desk, her voice mixing with the shrill grating of chalk scratching against the board and the clamour of locker doors slamming in the hall. She sounds grouchy, frustrated, and very done with this day — understandable for someone who just had furniture thrown at them by a malicious poltergeist. "Make yourself useful for a change and bust this thing!"

But in that moment Holtz freezes, unable to come up with a retort, to explain the plan and defend herself. She _knows_ Patty was kidding. She knows the team thinks she's useful, she knows they're her friends, but the words are a little too harsh in a place that's a little too familiar and she feels her breath catch in her throat. She knows Patty is in danger, and she still can't force herself to move. A wave of even stronger incompetence washes over her.

At that moment Erin and Abby burst through the door, and the ghost is sucked away in an instant. Scraps of paper flutter to the ground, and the chalk drops back into the tray. The school is quiet. And still Holtz doesn't stir.

"Good job, Holtz!" Erin says immediately after setting the trap down, reaching out to help her stand. She rolls her eyes, running a hand through her hair. "The knob was stuck on the latch, we couldn't have gotten it in time if you hadn't led it away!" And Patty claps her on the back and Holtz forces a smile, but there's still a weight in the pit of her stomach that seems to be getting bigger rather than going away. Erin eyes her nervously, but Abby picks up on the tension and decides to intervene.

"God, this place is even getting to me," she says in an exasperated voice, shaking her head. "Did you see those life-size posters of the football team out in the lobby? If they spent half that money on new science equipment …"

"Or books," Patty adds, eyeing the fraying spines of the few books in the classroom in distaste.

And Holtz can't help but smile for real then, because Abby has picked up the chalk and started drawing giant pigs in football uniforms, which bear a shocking likeness to the actual players out in the hall, across the blackboard.

Her friends are different. Her friends appreciate her. But she is still more than ready to get out of this place, so similar to where she had been teased and taunted and made to feel so small.

In reality, it wasn't even the teasing that had hit her the hardest. At least when people teased her, she was in control — her reactions had the ability to make or break the bullies, and she had used that to her advantage. She outsmarted them every time, left them wondering who exactly had just been insulted.

But what had really gotten to her was when they all started giving her the silent treatment. Instead of making fun of her to her face, they would snicker behind their hands when she talked, push her around in the hallways. Baby Jillian was even smaller than Holtz is now, and a few years younger than her classmates as well after skipping several grades. She never stood a chance once the bulky football players got in on the joke.

One thing is for sure — Holtz knows where this vengeful spirit was coming from. She's honestly not sure she can begrudge it this little bit of revenge for whatever suffering it faced within these walls.

She shakes herself a little, adjusting her goggles and tucking her broken shield generator into her belt (a part of her is already planning the adjustments she'll make back at the lab). Then, because Abby is still drawing on the board and Patty has started flipping through the three history books stacked haphazardly on the shelves, she trails after Erin in the direction of the bathroom.

"I don't know how I managed to get ectoplasm on me this time," she says with a groan when Holtz catches up with her at the door. "I don't even think the ghost noticed I was here." Holtz chuckles because, noticed or not, Erin does have a significant amount of green slime splashed down her front.

"It's like it's attracted to you or something," she says as they enter the dark, dirty bathroom, shrugging. "And honestly, can you blame it?"

"Shut up," Erin mutters, pulling out several yards of paper towels and mopping up the slime as best she can. Holtz lets the water wash nonexistent dirt from under her short fingernails, content for now to let Erin believe she was joking.

After trying (and failing) to remove the green tinge from the front of her coveralls, Erin finally chucks the dirty paper towels toward the trash can, naturally missing by several feet. As Holtz delicately picks the paper with two fingers and successfully throws it away, Erin waves her hand underneath the automatic faucet. Nothing happens. She tries again. Also nothing.

"I swear to God, sometimes I think I'm actually invisible," she says to an amused Holtz, who, instead of helping her, has propped herself up against the wall by the hand dryer to watch. Holtz tries to smile sympathetically but ends up chuckling instead. Erin scowls at her reflection in the mirror.

"There something you're not telling me, Gilbert?" she asks cheekily as the physicist fails again to activate the stream of water. "How long ago did you die?"

"It's not funny!" Erin lets out a little growl, switching hands and running her entire arm under the faucet to see if a more prolonged stimulus does the trick. It doesn't. "Maybe it's broken?"

Holtz, having washed her hands only a minute before, knows full well it's not broken. She suspects Erin does as well. "Would you prefer to be busted with a proton gun or merely contained?"

Erin shrieks as the water finally comes on, splattering across her sleeve and soaking through the fabric. "Screw you, Holtzmann," she says, but then she's distracted because the soap is automatic as well and it's not cooperating either. It takes her three times to trigger the sensor.

Holtzmann waves her own hand beneath the hand dryer as Erin turns away from the sink, sparing her the struggle she's sure would have ensued. "Seriously, though, we've been looking for an explanation as to why you get slimed the most. A common composition just makes sense. Did you expect to keep your ghostly status a secret from fellow scientists?"

Erin nudges her aside with her shoulder a little harder than she needed to, rolling her eyes. "If you don't stop it, you're going to be the dead one."

"You know, Gilbert, I really don't think you're capable of murder."

"Try me."

Holtz gives her a little wink, ignoring the tingling feeling she gets at Erin's slight blush, and saunters out of the bathroom instead.

"You two sure took your time in their," Abby says when they arrive back in the entrance hall. She gives Holtz a look that she can't quite categorize, but that she suspects is evidence that she has not been as subtle as she thought she was. Thankfully, Erin speaks up before she can embarrass herself with a poorly-thought-out-comment.

"I was de-sliming," she says with a wry grin. "And the sink wouldn't turn on. Holtz just watched and laughed at me."

"It was very amusing," Holtz says with a shrug. "You shoulda been there."

"It was like I was invisible," Erin repeats for the other two, grimacing. "So, actually _not_ enjoyable."

Holtz watches her face fall almost imperceptibly at the words, and immediately worries she's gone too far. In truth, it's news to her that a person like Erin Gilbert — well-dressed, successful, _loved_ Erin Gilbert — could ever feel like she didn't matter. She'd thought they were so different, and she doesn't know what to make of this new similarity. Is Erin less normal than she thought? Or do Holtz's feelings of insignificance _not_ make her different from the others?

"Wouldn't be the first thing that tried to pretend we were inconsequential," Patty says with a grin. "I'm sure you showed it who's boss in the end."

"Even common household appliances deny us fame," Abby laments, an over-exaggerated look of devastation on her face. "This just adds insult to injury." She snickers, but Erin nods seriously.

"You know, the other day I walked right past two of the professors I taught with at Columbia," she says, a note of something dark in her voice. "I smiled, waved, like you would expect from a colleague — an acquaintance at least, if not a friend." She swallows thickly. "They … they walked right past. Didn't even glance at me."

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure they talked about it later," Holtz says. She didn't know these particular people, but those hoity-toity professor types are all the same. She's not really a fan of any of them.

"Not in a good way, I'm sure," Erin says with a weak giggle.

"They're just jealous 'cause you've got an awesome job saving the world and they have to babysit drooling teenagers all year," Abby says, patting her shoulder comfortingly. Erin smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes.

Later, at the car, Holtz hands Patty the keys and slides into the back next to Erin. She sprawls out in a typically casual fashion, goggles low on her nose and arms behind her head, but when they've merged onto the freeway and Abby and Patty are fighting over the radio, she leans over and whispers, "Sorry for making fun of you in there."

"You weren't," Erin says immediately, smiling gently at her. "You were just teasing. I know that."

"Seriously, though." Holtz takes a deep breath, and her next sentence comes out in a stilted stammer. "I know what it feels like to feel invisible, and it's not nice, and I don't want you to feel like that. Ever."

She opens her eyes (they'd scrunched closed sometime during the speech) and finds Erin staring at her in confusion.

"You?" she asks finally. "Invisible?"

"Yes?" Holtz says, not sure where the confusion is coming from.

"You," Erin repeats, eyeing her critically. "With your gloriously weird hair and clothes and charismatic personality and the fact that whenever we go on a bust you end up with, on average, three phone numbers written on your arm?"

"I— huh?" Holtz blinks. Sure, sometimes girls give her their numbers — she doesn't usually call. But shopping at thrift stores and dancing to loud music was on the list of things that people ignored her _for_ in school.

"Holtz, you're _not_ invisible," Erin says firmly. "Come on. I mean, obviously you're beautiful—" Erin flushes an interesting shade of red, and Holtz has to work hard to nod nonchalantly at the complement even as a bubble of happiness rises in her chest "—and funny and good at talking to people without making things awkward. God," she gives a self-deprecating giggle, "some people have all the luck."

"You're not invisible either, Gilbert," Holtz says, trying to make eye contact but focusing somewhere around Erin's ear. "I see you." Suddenly she leans forward between the two front seats, interrupting Abby's passionate (albeit inaccurate) spitting of some rapid-fire rapping thing. "What do you say I control the music instead?" she says, not really asking permission.

"Thank you, God," Patty declares to the heavens, and Abby grumbles, but they all smile at Holtz as she tunes in to the '80s station.

"Should have known you wouldn't give up all your privileges along with the keys," Abby mutters affectionately, aiming what starts as a smack but ends up as more of a gentle pat at Holtz's arm.

Holtz grins, resting her head briefly on Abby's shoulder as Erin starts singing softly along behind her. Maybe she's not so invisible after all.


End file.
